India to raise extradition of Kim Davy with visiting Danish FM
Kim Davy
India will raise the issue of the extradition of Kim Davy, an accused in the 1995 arms drop in West Bengal's Purulia district, with the visiting foreign minister of Denmark, Anders Samuelsen.
Davy aka Niels Holck is accused of air dropping arms and ammunition, including hundreds of AK-47 rifles and anti-tank grenades, in Purulia 23 years ago in December 1995.
Anders will be on a two-day visit to India on December 17 and 18 and will be meeting External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu.
Top government sources told WION, "All issues will be discussed including consular access."
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had met Danish PM Lars Løkke Rasmussen during the India-Nordic summit in April this year with both deciding to enhance ties.
India had decided to scale down ties with Denmark in 2012 after a lower court in that country refused Davy's extradition.
Speaking to WION in Stockholm back in April, Løkke Rasmussen had said about Davy, "These issues... we deal in the legal track. When I was PM in 2011, my minister of justice took the decision to extradite him. But it was rejected by our courts. But now our director of general prosecution is looking into this. On political track, we will restart joint commission."
India's ministry of external affairs had sent Denmark's ministry of justice, through its ministry of foreign affairs, a formal request for Davy's extradition in 2016.
Back in April, Rasmussen also called for stronger ties between Copenhagen and New Delhi. "We have strong historical ties and we have bilateral relation for 400 years. I have agreed with your PM its time to enhance it. We are restarting Indo-Danish Joint Commission," he told WION.
The inaugural meeting of the India-Denmark Joint Commission took place in 2010.